So today I had the opportunity to go out in my parent’s tender today with my brother. The reason for this blog post is this was my first time piloting our tender, and I just felt like sharing this experience. Our tender is an Offshore Cruising Tender 330 which I like to call Dongle. The tender needed to be run for about 3 hours today because the fuel was old and we need to put hours on our Suzuki 15 Outboard so that we can do regular maintenance on it.
The first run out was around to Ogleton Lake which is just south of where SV EOTI is currently moored up. As this was my first time piloting Dongle, I was very nervous and we took it very slowly around to Ogleton. When we got inside of the lake we checked the fuel gauge, realized it was reading empty and decided to return to EOTI to grab some cash and the fuel additive.
By now I had started to learn some of the handling characteristics of this little tender. Maneuvering inside of the marina I quickly learned how much it likes to skate around, for example the stern will move before the bow at slow speeds. This makes maneuvering interesting as one cannot really point the boat like a car.
After picking up fuel additive and some cash we then decided to run over to Annapolis Landing Marina to fuel up. This marina is located just north of our marina in a place called Back Creek. This is where almost all of the marinas and all of the boat yards in Annapolis are located. This is one of the most heavily trafficked places in the area, especially on a Sunday afternoon. We managed to pull into traffic alright and not get run over by any of the yachts. It took a couple of tries, but we were able to tie up to the fuel dock and fill the gas tank up with a staggering 6 gallons. We dropped the lines and then went up Spa Creek to explore a little bit and try and find famous sailing YouTubers. Without any luck we made our way back to EOTI whilst navigating some intense traffic.
It was after we had exited Spa Creek and were on our way back to EOTI that I had built up enough confidence that I felt comfortable trying to try out the tender’s capabilities. Before I had mostly been at low throttle, not even getting up into a plane because there was a significant chop on the bay, and also a lot of wake from large motor boats going really fast. But a couple of times we found flat enough water that it we could get up into a plane. So we did and got Dongle doing 16.5 knots at one point which was very exciting.
All while learning to handle the tender, I found that there are generally 3 modes of behavior in handling. At low speed the tender will sit low and roll with whatever the waves are doing. A little bit more throttle will suck the stern down and kick the bow up as more water begins to be forced under the hull. The tender is almost ready to plane at this point. Then I give it a little more throttle and the stern will rise out of the water and the boat will suddenly accelerate as the only thing in the water is the prop to the outboard. This behavior mode of full planing can be a little exciting in choppy conditions as waves slap the bottom of the boat. It is also the most fun state to be in as the dinghy takes off.
I realize that for most cruisers all of this is fairly mundane, but for me it was a new experience and I wanted to post something outside of the classwork that is going to soon inundate this blog for the next few months.
Header photo credit: Sam Liles, photo taken from SV EOTI as Dongle pulls into slip behind.